2016-08-28

News Review: Fear Campaigns; Dot Registry Challenges ICANN Monopoly

Domain Mondo's review and look ahead [pdf], starting first with the macro view, the big picture, after cutting through all the noise, which is also this week's first feature:

Feature •Fear Campaigns: EU referendum vote for Brexit 'would spark year-long recession' | BBC.com May 24, 2016. Sound familiar? Citigroup: A Trump Victory in November Could Cause a Global Recession | Bloomberg.com August 25, 2016.Reality check:While no one knows who will win the U.S. Presidential election (as of August 27, the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times "Daybreak" tracking poll shows Clinton and Trump virtually tied 44.6%-43.3%), any "expert" opinion that a Trump victory, or a Clinton victory, will cause a "global recession" should be treated as conjecture, hyperbole, bias, or just plain old hysterics. Legendary investor Warren Buffett, who endorsed Hillary Clinton, doesn't think that: Warren Buffett on Trump Presidency: We'll Be Fine | Fortune.com: "Predicted the country, the economy and his company would continue to grow." A Trump victory would most likely lead to a surge in economic prosperity according to billionaire bond investor Jeffrey Gundlach, who has not endorsed Trump nor said whether he would vote for him, but has predicted Trump will win:

Not only will Donald Trump win the November election, but his victory will propel U.S. economic growth higher. Trump will fuel a debt-driven increase in government spending, which will push GDP growth to levels reminiscent of the Ronald Reagan era. Trump will move ahead in the polls, despite criticism from the media, and as Trump’s inauguration approaches, the market will rally “for reasons people won’t understand." --Gundlach: Trump Will Be an Economic Success | AdvisorPerspectives.com

Even staunch Clinton supporter, and Nobel Prize-winning economist, Paul Krugman, agrees that Trump Is Right on Economics | Paul Krugman Op-Ed in The New York Times. And in fairness to the Citigroup "expert" source of the Bloomberg story first cited above, the headline is misleading. If you read the story all the way to the end, the source states that there could be a boost to the economy under either a Trump or Clinton administration.

None of this is meant to suggest voting for either Trump or Clinton (frankly, at this point I have grave reservations about both candidates), but I am pointing out that "fear" is a human emotion exploited by politicians, media, pundits, and hucksters (e.g.,FUD, FOMO). Caveat Emptor!

And what about that Brexit Project Fear campaign waged, unsuccessfully, by the Remain camp? Well, besides Remain leaders David Cameron and George Osborne losing their jobs as Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, respectively, the UK economy has not collapsed into recession either. Pro-Remain establishment media, e.g., the Financial Times (FT.com), are now beginning to eat crow:

The London Stock Exchange benchmark indexes: FTSE 100 up +7.89% since Brexit vote (see chart above) and FTSE 250 up +3.45% since the Brexit vote on June 23rd. Meanwhile the German DAX is ahead only 3.22%, and the French CAC40 (-0.54%) is still in negative territory, since June 23rd.

No one can "know" what the long-term impact of Brexit will be, on either the UK or EU, until the details are "known" of a post-Brexit UK-EU trade agreement, as well as other UK non-EU trade initiatives. Projections based on assumptions are speculative at best. All of this just reaffirms what I cited three weeks ago: "There are no experts on the future. Explaining the present and the past requires expertise: “it’s your carburetor/prostate”. In forecasting the future, experts are generally no better than everybody else. They might be worse."--rationaloptimist.com. See alsoBarry Ritholtz on the folly of forecasts (and see this, this and this), "... it is worth reminding ourselves just how terrible humans are at predicting ... what will happen in markets and/or the economy."

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Feature • Dot Registry Challenges ICANN Monopoly

On Friday, new gTLD applicant Dot Registry LLC, filed a motion in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (No. 16-55693, No. 16-55694) for leave to file an Amicus Curiae ("friend of the Court") brief in support of Plaintiff-Appellee DotConnectAfrica Trust (DCA Trust). The motion and tendered brief can be reviewed in full here and here (pdf) (highlighting added). Dot Registry is supporting DCA Trust's argument that ICANN's "release" from liability required of all new gTLD applicants is unenforceable under California Civil Code Sec. 1688 and is also unconscionable. In its tendered brief, Dot Registry refers to ICANN as a monopolist and repeatedly refers to ICANN's "monopoly" in the domain name space:

"ICANN exercises monopoly power over a critical channel of commerce. It may not lawfully use that power to exempt its decisions from any binding review by a court or arbitrator in any forum. California courts will not enforce contracts that are unconscionable. [citing authorities]"--p. 11

"GNSO Working Group that will be conducting a Policy Development Process (PDP) to Review all Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) in all gTLDs. This PDP is being conducted in two phases, as described in the approved charter: Phase One will focus on a review of all the RPMs that were developed for the 2012 New gTLD Program, and Phase Two will focus on a review of the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP)."

Google's Russian antitrust case, global implications "... the Russian agency has issued a fine and given Google eight days to update its distribution deals and inform existing Android users about ways they can install competitive apps. Google has one more appeal left ... other governments, including the U.S., South Korea and in the EU, could be reevaluating their antitrust reviews of the Android operating system, the crux of Google’s global growth plan."--POLITICO.com

Google petitions Supreme Court on Chrome and Patent Claims | Fortune.com: “Overbroad patent claims are a plague, especially in the vital and growing high-tech sector … All of this plays into the hands of entities that buy patents and then use litigation or the threat of litigation to extract settlements from alleged infringers,” says Google petition. See also Patentlyo.com.

The Metagame: A Monetization Opportunity For Twitter?"Twitter gets the metagame trend. Monetizing a metagame platform ..."--SeekingAlpha.com

Evidence points to another Snowden at the NSA: "NSA may prove to be one of Washington’s greatest liabilities rather than assets."--Reuters.com

In the Bitcoin Era, Ransomware Attacks Surge: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation said ransomware attacks cost victims $209 million in the first three months of the year, including costs, such as lost productivity and staff time to recover files, that is an average of about $333,000 an incident, based on complaints that it has received. The total is up from $24 million for all of 2015, or about $10,000 an infection, the FBI said."--WSJ.com

Apple iPhone vs Web Services: "... Why buy a $700 iPhone when a $200 Android phone can access the same YouTube or Amazon Music as everyone else? All you need to do to get new Facebook features is refresh your browser or update your app. You don't need a high-performance device to participate in the 21st century ... And it could be a dire omen for high-margin hardware companies like Apple."--BusinessInsider.com

Eleven Reasons To Be Excited About The Future of Technology--Chris Dixon, Medium.com.

• Four most popular posts (# of pageviews Sun-Sat) this week on DomainMondo.com: